


a crucible to share

by ninemoons42



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Duties and Responsibilities, Episode Gladio DLC, Established Relationship, Literal Sleeping Together, M/M, Mostly Canon Compliant, Oaths & Vows, Promises, Timeline What Timeline, close enough though, they don't quite say "to have and to hold"
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-23
Updated: 2018-05-23
Packaged: 2019-05-10 09:03:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,093
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14734031
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ninemoons42/pseuds/ninemoons42
Summary: Over the course of a night and a morning, Gladio and Ignis ask each other the difficult questions, and find that they might have answers in common after all.





	a crucible to share

Haze of mist and fog and the swirling leaves on the wild wind, the stars tossed on the night-torn clouds, and for all the gleam of city lights and the blur of the Wall, that illuminating shield, he can’t seem to make sense of the world all around him.

It’s even an ordinary night of some kind: tonight, the Prince is safe in his rooms in the Citadel, and not alone, because the extraordinary boy who’s revealed himself to not only be a refugee from the very heart and mechanical hub of Niflheim itself, but also Noctis’s loyal lover and makeshift protector is watching the doors -- as Ignis himself had learned, and not even for the first time, on using his keys to try and slip in and then he’d been pinned down beneath the heartless cold muzzle of a sturdy, time-weathered shotgun. The gun cut short specifically so that the boy guarding the door could use it almost entirely one-handed. Iron sights, and those otherworldly blue-purple eyes like chips of ice, belying the sunshine-colored wild mane of his hair, the scattershot arc of freckles over his cheeks and the bridge of his nose. 

So Noctis -- and Prompto, like the flash of the winter sun -- are present and accounted for on a school night, and on any other night that would mean some kind of strange reprieve. Some kind of night that Ignis can take for himself, hoard for himself, and maybe try to disguise the silver strands multiplying in his own hair.

But he’s been unsettled all day, dogged by the ghostly footsteps of his worries and his fears, and there’s no one here to understand him. There’s no one to sit with and drink with and pull things apart with. The puzzle-pieces of this world, of this life, falling in unruly disorder and there’s no other pair of hands to work beside his, weathered and sturdy and powerful, ink-lines tracing all the way down to the wrists.

He hunts down the other set of keys on the massive ring that he wears on the doubled chain snaking out of the pocket of his trousers. Silver ring, silver chain, to match the weight that he carries on the opposite hip: the knife that is his own weapon, the one that he never vanishes into the Armiger because this is the last piece of his family that’s still left to him in this world, in this Eos. Flame-edges down the length of the broad curve, and he knows those grooves well, even when he doesn’t have to draw --

Rustle and snap of movement, heading for him, in the dark of his suite -- he doesn’t even reach for the knife -- one hand in a tight fist that’s already winding up for the haymaker, and flash and flare of fire in the other, to blind and to burn --

Gleam of firelight in amber-golden eyes. Gleam of firelight across broad shoulders and the silent shriek of a bird of prey on the stoop, on the fatal dive -- 

“Is it really you?” he asks, softly. It’s not that he’s unwilling to believe: it’s that the details are wrong. Fresh wounds in that rugged face, and hanks of dark hair hacked roughly away. “How do I know it’s really you?”

“You lied about that knife right to the King’s face,” is the quiet rasp of an answer, quiet like a blade on the downstroke of a slash is quiet. “You said you had simply taken it from someone. You found it in pieces. You put it back together. You nearly burned your own magic out, trying to make it whole again.”

And he would know -- Gladiolus would know -- three days he’d been laid low by the whole ordeal, shivering despite the blankets and his winter clothes piled on, and Gladiolus had made all his excuses, had shut the door right in Noctis’s face and in the King’s, when they’d come to inquire after Ignis’s health.

In the here and now, he waits him out still, until he meets his eyes and says, “It’s me, it’s really me.”

And reluctantly he reabsorbs the magical flame -- winces as it runs fever-hot down his skin and his nerves -- and he unclenches his hands. Snatches at Gladiolus by the torn edges of his collar -- from the corner of his eye he watches the turn of night-shadows across his frame as he marches him straight into his bedroom. As he pushes him down to sit on the foot of the bed. Click of the lamp that Gladiolus almost shies away from, but Ignis just turns its glare out of his eyes, and regards the bleeding slashes in his face. 

“Don’t talk,” he says. “I don’t want that account. Not now. Not when you’re not ready to speak.”

Silently Gladiolus nods, in response.

The first-aid kit Ignis keeps in the closet isn’t that large, as these things go, but he’s used everything in it at least once, and most of it on Gladiolus, at that. Bandages, sterile batting, distilled water and iodine -- he bats away his half-hearted words, his attempt at doing for himself. Brisk motions, practiced -- and he’s so close to him he can see the movements of his eyebrows. The way he thinks the iodine might sting -- and it does because Ignis also catches the brief widening of his eyes -- but he runs his fingertips along the edges of the wounds and feels Gladiolus breathe out. A long soft sigh -- and when he’s done with it, he soothes the dark frowning lines in his face with his thumbs. 

“All right?”

“Yeah. Thank you.” 

He watches him fall back onto the bed -- watches him take up more or less the entire space of it, all the real estate of the sheets and the pillows, and he clicks his tongue, and gets a smirk in return. “Come here?”

For a moment Ignis looks at Gladiolus, only half-clothed, fatigue radiating out from him like a nearly visible mist -- and the moment dies when he toes his boots off, when he shucks his suit jacket, when he runs his hands through his hair. Eyeglasses on the nightstand, and he squeezes himself onto the sliver of the bed that isn’t taken up by Gladiolus.

It’s almost comfortable -- this isn’t even the tenth time, or the hundredth time, that they’ve done anything like this -- but Gladiolus is turning and catching him up, his entire warmth pressed up against his back, and it’s Ignis’s turn to sigh, just a little, just enough for him to hear, and he makes himself close his eyes.

He knows he sleeps, because he feels like he’s coming apart in the waking, slow laborious effort -- and it’s too warm, and he’s drowning in the scent of Gladiolus, the presence of Gladiolus -- the thud of his heartbeat steady and loud that overwhelms the sudden hammering in Ignis’s own --

He’s hurt, he’s tired, he’s asleep, despite the fact that Ignis can feel him, the length of him pressing into his back, and he only has his own hormones to blame for the want that saws down his nerves, for the sweet temptation catching him in its claws. A different kind of fire that rakes at him and leaves him breathless, leaves him wide awake and sweating and shivering at the same time.

“Ignis.”

Quiet rough voice rumbling right over the back of his neck: too much, too much, and he all but rolls out of the bed, disheveled clothes and bedhead be damned. Traitorous tremble in his hands as he reaches for his crumpled suit jacket -- as though it would shield him from Gladiolus, as though it would hide the heat that he feels in his own face, the flush that he feels is already creeping down his throat, down to his shoulders -- 

“Hey. Gorgeous. Come back to bed.”

And damn him, damn him! Gladiolus is sitting up and he’s reaching out to him. His hand is steady between them. The sleep fogging his features, the stark white of his bandages: they take nothing away from the beauty of him, like monumental forms in the earth itself, like something the gods made to be venerated and admired.

“I -- will see you later,” he mutters, and he manages to turn his back on him -- manages to take two and three and four steps away, heading for the door out of the bedroom, the door out of his rooms -- 

He feels the impact of Gladiolus before anything else: not the sounds of his footsteps, not the sounds of his breathing overtaking his, but the warmth of him, catching him up in the insistent and gentle strength of his arms. 

“If you really don’t want to be here, tell me, and I’ll let you go,” he hears him say.

Gentle pressure on the back of his head, and he knows exactly what it is, exactly what it means, and he covers his face with his hands.

And Ignis melts backward into the warmth of Gladiolus, the warmth that is a wall that holds him steady and upright. 

“It’s, it’s just that it’s not fair to you,” he whispers. “I’ve been out of sorts and I don’t want to take it out on you.”

“It’s a bad world out there,” Gladiolus mutters, and Ignis thinks he hears sympathy in his words, in the beat of his heart loud beneath his ear. “And you carry so much of it. But you know you’re not supposed to carry it alone. You can’t. And I won’t let you.”

“You have your own burdens to carry,” he says, by way of answer. He’s not fighting him any more. He’s not trying to get away from him any more. He’s leaning back into him, shivering as he runs his hands down his tattooed arms, as he takes his hands. “You have your duties. I have mine.”

“And I remember that I said -- I would carry you, if you were to falter on the road that you were taking. Because I said I would need your help from time to time, and you said you would help me. You said you would ask me for help, if you needed it. If you’ve changed your mind -- ”

He does remember that.

He does remember: as clearly as he remembers the night of that gala. The last time the King had celebrated his birthday in public, with the black and gold glitter of the court whirling around him.

How long has it been since then?

Why is he still fighting him, when he’s been there for him, when they’ve been there for each other?

It’s hard, it’s so hard, to reveal the last secret he has: “What happens if I fall and I can’t get back up? What happens if I lose my way? If I lose sight of the road, the world, the duty that I have?”

“Then you’ll be someone else. Then you’ll be stronger. And you will never, never lose me: I told you I was playing for keeps. I told you I would stand with you no matter what happened.” The sweet steady fervor of Gladiolus leaves him shaken to the core. “I told you if anyone had any questions about what I wanted from you -- about my intentions towards you -- I’d set them straight.” Chuckle, rueful, almost sad. “Wasn’t thinking that included you, but -- I guess I forgot how stubborn you were.”

“Gladiolus.” He hangs his head, a little. 

“No, shut up, you’ve got me talking, you gotta let me say all of it.” 

“But you’re shaking,” Ignis says, and he turns around in his arms, and allows himself the luxury of reaching out for his hair. Torn edges, uneven, but never enough to detract from his face, from the emotions fully revealed in his eyes. 

“Still not over -- the thing,” he says.

“Then back to bed you go. We go,” he says, quickly correcting himself.

And he lets Gladiolus do with him as he will, and he leans back into him when he insists on playing the big spoon. 

Ignis presses a kiss into his wrist, and murmurs, “What is it that you wanted to say?”

“You know where I went. You know what I was trying to do. You didn’t stop me even though we both knew I might not come back from the Tempering Grounds. But you let me go, and all you said was -- _either be the King’s Shield, or come back_ on _yours._ ”

He nods. “I remember.”

“There are trials in there that I can’t talk to you about because I can’t even understand them now. And all I can tell you is that Gilgamesh is real and he really has been waiting in there for -- for someone to kill, and for someone to defeat him. Also, I don’t care what the books say, and I’ve read them with you. I don’t give a fuck. Gilgamesh is an asshole and he’s real and he cut me to pieces.”

“That didn’t seem to stop you,” he mutters, trying to swallow past the worry and the fear.

“Because I was thinking about being the perfect Shield. And -- and not just to Noct.” And Ignis hears him take a deep breath. “I was thinking about being your Shield, too.”

“Thank you,” he says, because those are the first words he thinks of, the first words he thinks he can say, when he’s so quietly moved. And: “But, Gladiolus, you do know that I don’t need a Shield; instead, I feel I may need to be one, too. If you fall protecting Noctis, then your duties would devolve to me, would they not? And you know that the reverse is true: if I fall, then my duties would be added to yours. 

“I know who I am, and I know what I can do, and I can fight at the side of a king. I can give him advice, if I can see the road ahead, if I can figure out the forks in the paths that we must take. But if that is taken away from me, then how can I perform my duties -- much less yours?”

Silence.

Gladiolus’s breathing, long and unsteady, warming.

“They’ll have to take it away from you,” he hears Gladiolus say, after a long pause. “You said it yourself. You know you’re good at what you do. If you stop being that, if you stop being good at the things you know how to do, it’ll be because it was all taken away from you. Not through your mistakes or your lies or your omissions or whatever. Not because of what you did, but because it would be forced onto you.”

“You have such faith in me.” He thinks he wants to laugh, small and bitter and jagged around the edges.

“Because you believed in me first. Don’t think I don’t remember,” and that’s Gladiolus’s laughter, wrapping around him, gentle kind sound. “It never made sense to me: you were skinny, you were tiny, but you saw my leg in a fucking huge cast and you said you wanted to help. Little nobody, little stranger, you didn’t even know who I was and you went to help me anyway, like some pocket-sized hero coming to the rescue. How old were we? I mean, my mom was still around. I remember her pressing sweets into your hands. You were, you didn’t want to accept them because you weren’t thinking about rewards and things like that.”

He turns around, then, and he feels the smile tug at his lips even as he’s pulling Gladiolus in for a kiss. “That is literally the first time you’ve ever mentioned it, all these years we’ve known each other. I thought it was something you didn’t remember. I thought the memory was only mine to keep.”

“No, never. It’s ours to remember. Ours to keep.” Gladiolus is drawing closer, is kissing him, soft touches against his cheeks, against his eyebrows. “And mine to remind you. Because my answer’s the same, either way. My duties and your duties. I will carry mine out now that I know exactly what my duties are. Where the limits are, and I’ll break them if I have to, but I’ll carry out my duties no matter what. And I’ll always be here to help you with yours. That’s my promise to you. That’s the choice I made, in the Tempering Grounds. That’s what got me through. That’s what got me back here to you.”

He will not cry. He will not stain those beautiful words, those plain and simple promises, with salt or regrets or refusals. 

So he simply takes Gladiolus’s hands in both of his own, and says, “Would that I could go on some kind of journey to be tested as you were. Perhaps that is in our future yet. Our future, yours and mine -- wherever it is that Noctis must go. I know I will walk beside him because that is my duty and that is my choice. And I know you will go with him, because you are his Shield. Because you chose to be his Shield.” He smiles. “I know that you will go with me. I know that you will not leave me -- even if I err, and push you away. Don’t let me push you away, Gladiolus. That’s all I will ever ask of you.”

“Never. And -- do the same for me. I know I’ll be an ass. I know I’ll make mistakes. So don’t you let me pull away, Ignis.”

“I will not let you go. Not now, not ever.”

“That’s a damn promise.”

*

Over the radio, in Altissia, years later, in the ruins of an Astral’s rampage, this is what he hears:

“Ignis! Listen to me! Remember what you asked me to do! Remember what I asked you to do!”

“I won’t forget, Gladiolus.”

*

He weeps, that first morning, when he realizes that he’s lost half of his sight and all of his bearings -- Gladiolus’s arms around him, steadying him, holding him tightly. “What do I do now?”

“Remember,” is all the reply he gets, quiet, strong, powerful. “I made a promise. You made a promise. So remember. And we’ll keep going on.”

“I don’t know how to.”

“What makes you think I do? But we’ll keep on going on anyway. We have to. Because I want you to find the hope that we need. I want you to carry it with me.”

*

He sees the first sunrise in ten years through a haze of tears, over Gladiolus’s shoulder.

**Author's Note:**

> ninemoons42 on Tumblr: [@ninemoons42-lestallumhaven](http://ninemoons42-lestallumhaven.tumblr.com/) or [@ninemoons42](http://ninemoons42.tumblr.com/)


End file.
